Keyboard shortcut for "open a terminal here"

Question

How can I create a keyboard shortcut so that when I press F12 in nautilus (or desktop), I get a terminal in the current directory?

score 52 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 22 '21 at 14:58

Edit: not anymore applicable for Ubuntu 16.10 and newer

Finally figured it out.. first sudo apt-get install dconf-tools nautilus-open-terminal, then run dconf-editor and set the org/gnome/desktop/interface/can-change-accels boolean on. Then open nautilus using this command (to disable Unity global menu Temporarily):

nautilus -q
UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 nautilus

Now you can mouseover the action in the file menu, and change the accel by typing your key while the action is highlighted, finally restart your nautilus. If you don't see Open in terminal in the File menu and you've just installed nautilus-open-terminal, you might need to first run nautilus -q.

enter image description here

Ubuntu 14.04 and up

If you can't find the can-change-accels key in your dconf configuration you can try the following solution:

Stop nautilus by executing nautilus -q
Open ~/.config/nautilus/accels in a text editor of your choice, e.g. gedit:
```
 gedit ~/.config/nautilus/accels
```

Try to see if you can find the following line:

 ;(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/DirViewActions/OpenInTerminal" "")

If the line exists, add your keyboard shortcut in the second double-quoted segment and uncomment the line by removing ;:
```
 (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/DirViewActions/OpenInTerminal" "F12")
```
This would set the shortcut to F12. For a list of all possible key codes please consult this answer.

If the line doesn't exist just copy and paste the one found in this answer at the end of the file.
Save the file and restart Nautilus by clicking on the Nautilus icon in your launcher/dash.

Ubuntu 15.10 and 16.04

Here, the relevant command in ~/.config/nautilus/accels is TerminalNautilus:OpenFolderLocal. (NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal is still present in the file, but doesn't seem to have any effect.) So follow the instructions above, except change the line

; (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/ExtensionsMenuGroup/TerminalNautilus:OpenFolderLocal" "")

to

(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/ExtensionsMenuGroup/TerminalNautilus:OpenFolderLocal" "F12")

to make F12 your keyboard shortcut. Notice that ; is again removed.

Finally, log out for changes to take effect.

score 42 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 28 '23 at 07:14

Since version 3.15.4 Nautilus doesn't load the accel file anymore (Source).

Fortunately, there's a better approach in order to get what you want. Long explanation/useful resources can be found here and also here. In short:

Create a script called Terminal (yes, without an extension) inside the folder ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts with the following content:
```
#!/bin/sh
gnome-terminal
```
Make it executable, then close any Nautilus instance:
```
$ chmod +x Terminal
$ nautilus -q
```

Create (or edit) the ~/.config/nautilus/scripts-accels file adding these lines:

F12 Terminal
; Commented lines must have a space after the semicolon
; Examples of other key combinations:
; <Control>F12 Terminal
; <Alt>F12 Terminal
; <Shift>F12 Terminal

Test it! Open Nautilus, right click, and choose Scripts > Terminal. Or, use the keyboard shortcut that you've just configured :)

Note: Tested on Ubuntu 18.04.

Update Ubuntu 20.10: Unfortunately, this does not anymore work in Nautilus 3.38 (Ubuntu 20.10).

Update Ubuntu 21.10: Fortunately, the scripts-accels file works again in Files 40 (Ubuntu 21.10)

Thiago Lages de Alencar · Answer 3 · 2024-02-02T14:51:24.443

Not exactly the answer for this question

If all you want is access the terminal in the current directory, you can try:

Shift + F10 then e
or
Ctrl + F10 then e

(2020) When I wrote this was Ctrl
(2024) It seems that now is Shift

Shift/Ctrl + F10: Same as right click at the current directory
e: Selects "Open in Terminal"

It can change if your OS is in another language.

For example, in portuguese from brasil would be:
Shift/Ctrl + F10 then t

Just look at the underlined letter to know the key.
(2024) I had to use arrow keys to be able to see the underlined letter.

If you are using notebook you may have to use the super key too:
Shift/Ctrl + Super + F10 then e

You mentioned opening from Desktop, the closest i could think is opening the terminal on home directory:
Ctrl + Alt + t

score 13 · Answer 4 · edited May 07 '14 at 14:41

Using the dconf-editor approach doesn't seem to work in Trusty Gnome. But the following does:

In your home directory press Ctrl+h, open the .config folder, the nautilus folder, and the accels file;

ie, open ~/.config/nautilus/accels and change the line:

; (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/ExtensionsMenuGroup/NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal" "")

to

(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/ExtensionsMenuGroup/NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal" "F12")

Note that the comment delimiter has been removed.

Save the file, log out and back in.

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 12 '19 at 00:16

You could also use a nautilus script instead of a dedicated extension:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# Open terminal here
#
# Nautilus script that opens a gnome-terminal at the current location, if it's
# a valid one. This could be done in shell script, but I love Perl!.
#
# 20020930 -- Javier Donaire <jyuyu@fraguel.org>
# http://www.fraguel.org/~jyuyu/
# Licensed under the GPL v2+
#
# Modified by: Dexter Ang [thepoch@mydestiny.net]
# 2003-12-08: Modified for Gnome 2.4
#       - Added checking if executed on Desktop "x-nautilus-desktop:///"
#         so that it opens in /home/{user}/Desktop

use strict;

$_ = $ENV{'NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_CURRENT_URI'};
if ($_ and m#^file:///#) {
  s/%([0-9A-Fa-f]{2})/chr(hex($1))/eg;
  s#^file://##;
  exec "gnome-terminal --working-directory='$_'";
}

# Added 2003-12-08 Dexter Ang
if ($_ == "x-nautilus-desktop:///") {
  $_ = $ENV{'HOME'};
  $_ = $_.'/Desktop';
  exec "gnome-terminal --working-directory='$_'";
}

Instructions on installing the script and assigning a keyboard shortcut.

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 02 '14 at 14:25

To expand on John F. Healy's post:

nautilus -q
sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal
sed -i 's/; (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>\/ExtensionsMenuGroup\/NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal" "")/(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>\/ExtensionsMenuGroup\/NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal" "F12")/g' ~/.config/nautilus/accels

This should work on Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn. The last line edits the ~/.config/nautilus/accels file. To make sure the edit was successful, try the following command:

grep NautilusOpenTerminal::open_terminal ~/.config/nautilus/accels

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 10 '14 at 11:13

After installing nautilus-open-terminal, ensure that you have killed all nautilus processes (there's always one non visible nautilus process running, so use pgrep nautilus to find them and use then use the kill command).

Then if you launch nautilus, you should see the Open in Terminal if you right-click in the list of files, like I did in the screenshot below (where I was running 14.04):

enter image description here

Limina102 · Answer 8 · 2021-03-14T01:53:24.253

Besides configuring by hand, there is also a GUI application to manage these shortcuts: https://github.com/echo-devim/nautilusaccelsmanager (tested)

It's pretty useful since the configuration fails because of tiny stuff like capitalization. With this useful tool, just press the desired hotkeys and configuration with the right style is produced.

For a detailed insight of how it works, see https://askubuntu.com/a/696901/1147792.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 26 '24 at 17:46

Piggy backing off of Thiago Lages de Alencar's answer...

Right mouse + e opens a terminal.

This works in empty space or you can right click directly on desired folder.

...When using nautilus, I've typically got left hand on keyboard and right hand on mouse, so this is really natural given my hand positions.

If you want a dedicated single key shortcut you can use xdotool to mimic the click and keypress like below (assign this bash script to your preferred shortcut). I do a quick check so that I don't inadvertently run this script for other windows that aren't nautilus.

#!/bin/bash
is nautilus the active window?
naut_act=$(xprop -id $(xdotool getactivewindow) | grep WM_CLASS.*nautilus)
[[ -z $naut_act ]] && exit # if not exit
sleep .2 # may need adjustment 
/usr/bin/xdotool key --clearmodifiers  shift+F10 e  # may be ctrl+F10 in other distros

score 0 · Answer 10 · edited Nov 14 '24 at 03:55

0

You can use Ctrl+Alt+T to invoke terminal directly from the desktop.

edited Nov 14 '24 at 03:55

mpboden

3,046

answered Apr 04 '24 at 08:40

Naveed Ahmed

105

Keyboard shortcut for "open a terminal here"

10 Answers10

Ubuntu 15.10 and 16.04

is nautilus the active window?

Linked

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